How do I redirect output to cd?
Is it possible to redirect a command’s output to cd? For example, I searched for a directory using locate and got the path to it. Now, instead of writing a cd path, can I redirect the locate output to cd?
I tried this:
$ locate Descargas | grep Descargas$
/home/oliver/Descargas
$ locate Descargas | grep Descargas$ | cd
$ locate Descargas | grep Descargas$ > cd
$ locate Descargas | grep Descargas$ < cd
/home/oliver/Descargas
$
No luck. This probably isn’t particularly useful, but I’m curious.
You want command substitution, not redirection:
cd "$(locate Descargas | grep -F 'Descargas$')"
The bits between the $( and the ) are run as a command and the output (stripped of any final newline) is substituted into the overall command.
This can also be done with ‘back ticks’ (“`”):
cd "`locate Descargas | grep -F 'Descargas$'`"
The dollar-paren syntax is generally preferred because it is easier to deal with in nested situations:
# contrived
cd "$(grep '^dir: ' "$(locate interesting-places | head -1)" | sed 's/^[^ ]*//')"